Joint estimation of relaxation and diffusion tissue parameters for prostate cancer with relaxation-VERDICT MRI

Palombo, Marco ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4892-7967, Valindria, Vanya, Singh, Saurabh, Chiou, Eleni, Giganti, Francesco, Pye, Hayley, Whitaker, Hayley C., Atkinson, David, Punwani, Shonit, Alexander, Daniel C. and Panagiotaki, Eleftheria 2023. Joint estimation of relaxation and diffusion tissue parameters for prostate cancer with relaxation-VERDICT MRI. Scientific Reports 13 (1) , 2999. 10.1038/s41598-023-30182-1

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Abstract

This work presents a biophysical model of diffusion and relaxation MRI for prostate called relaxation vascular, extracellular and restricted diffusion for cytometry in tumours (rVERDICT). The model includes compartment-specific relaxation effects providing T1/T2 estimates and microstructural parameters unbiased by relaxation properties of the tissue. 44 men with suspected prostate cancer (PCa) underwent multiparametric MRI (mp-MRI) and VERDICT-MRI followed by targeted biopsy. We estimate joint diffusion and relaxation prostate tissue parameters with rVERDICT using deep neural networks for fast fitting. We tested the feasibility of rVERDICT estimates for Gleason grade discrimination and compared with classic VERDICT and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) from mp-MRI. The rVERDICT intracellular volume fraction fic discriminated between Gleason 3 + 3 and 3 + 4 (p = 0.003) and Gleason 3 + 4 and ≥ 4 + 3 (p = 0.040), outperforming classic VERDICT and the ADC from mp-MRI. To evaluate the relaxation estimates we compare against independent multi-TE acquisitions, showing that the rVERDICT T2 values are not significantly different from those estimated with the independent multi-TE acquisition (p > 0.05). Also, rVERDICT parameters exhibited high repeatability when rescanning five patients (R2 = 0.79–0.98; CV = 1–7%; ICC = 92–98%). The rVERDICT model allows for accurate, fast and repeatable estimation of diffusion and relaxation properties of PCa sensitive enough to discriminate Gleason grades 3 + 3, 3 + 4 and ≥ 4 + 3.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: open-access
Publisher:	Nature Research
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	22 February 2023
Date of Acceptance:	17 February 2023
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 08:28
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157254

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